Anti-Racist Message in Mass. Math Class
Liza Porteus, Fox News, Feb. 8
In some public schools math teachers do more than teach algebra and geometrythey give their students lessons intended to purge what they consider racism.
The anti-racist education program in place at Newton Public Schools in Newton, Mass., a wealthy, liberal niche of the Bay State, has angered some parents who believe the school district is more concerned about political correctness than teaching math skills.
According to benchmarks for middle school education, the top objective for the districts math teachers is to teach respect for human differences. The objective is for students to live out the system-wide core value of respect for human differences by demonstrating anti-racist/anti-bias behaviors.
Priority No. 2 is where the basics come in, which is problem solving and representationstudents will build new mathematical knowledge as they use a variety of techniques to investigate and represent solutions to problems.
The benchmarks, which could not be found on the districts Web site, were faxed to FOXNews.com by Tom Mountain, a columnist for The Newton Tab who has followed the districts education system and, specifically, the rise of the antiracist education agenda there. His Jan. 12 column on the topic received so much attention, he said, his e-mail inbox was flooded with over 200 responses.
I was surprised that this issue resonated so much with the general public, Mountain said in an interview of what he called PC nonsense going on at Newton. It would be silly and innocuous if it didnt have an effect on the schools standing, but it has.